He remains silent.
I kiss his back again. And again. I push his boxers all the way to the floor and wrap my arms around him, sliding my palms over his chest, then his belly, then lower where he’s already hard and urgent.
Trent doesn’t let me get there.
He spins around, hauls my legs up around his waist and charges straight to the bed. I’m tossed on my back and my panties are ripped off. He’s not overly rough but he isn’t gentle either. He pushes my legs apart and I feel the hard length of him on my right thigh as he props himself up on his palms, trapping me between them. There’s a spark in his dark eyes that I don’t recognize and I wonder if I’ve said something I shouldn’t have.
“Kiss me,” I beg, trying to pull him close.
He is immovable. He continues to stare down in that fierce way that makes me think of the gaze of a lion. He moves, entering me, and it seems this is how he’ll deflect from an unpleasant subject, using sex instead to dismiss conversation. Maybe that’s what he’s done in the past.
I won’t stop him.
If he needs my body right now then he can have it.
I want him too. I never stop wanting him.
But Trent changes his mind. He suddenly sinks down to his elbows and withdraws, rolling to his back and turning his head to the side.
“They would force us to fight each other for food,” he says in a bleak voice thick with a terrible history. “You don’t know how brutal you can be until you’re starving, Gretch. Dogs are trained to be vicious that way. They’re kept hungry and then turned loose to battle over scraps. The strongest gets to eat. It was the same with us.”
He pauses. I press my lips to his shoulder to let him know I’m listening.
“They weren’t supposed to fuck up our faces,” he says. “Too noticeable. Happened anyway when we fought each other. And we fought each other all the fucking time.”
With care, I touch the raised line that runs the length of his chest tattoo. “This?”
“Held down by three of the guards while a fourth branded me with a hot knife.”
I try not to wince and trace the circles burned lower on his belly. “And this?”
“Each one a punishment for an escape attempt.”
I swallow hard. “And on your back?”
“Whipped for spitting in the face of the warden.”
I move my hand to his face and turn him back to me. I kiss him softly and feel him relax, his arms loosening to help shift my position until I’m on top, straddling him. I’m ready and I guide him in with a low moan. I make love to him this way, more slowly than usual, coming twice in unhurried, delicious waves. I always know when he’s getting close and now is no different. Still, I don’t stop and neither does he.
“I want this.” I ride him harder. “I want you to finish this way.”
That’s all Trent needs to hear. He groans and tightens his grip on me as he releases and I take him, all of him, before settling against his chest and listening to his heartbeat.
It’s still early, earlier than we usually go to bed for the night, but Trent falls asleep anyway. I’m not tired at all and I don’t want to disturb his rest. After fumbling my way out of bed as quietly as possible, I retrieve my robe from the bathroom and pull it on while staring at the man in my bed.
I love you, Trentcassini.
There’s a throw blanket draped over an ottoman and I carefully cover him, although it’s far too short to be effective. He doesn’t stir as I silently leave the room and step into the hallway.
The only noise comes from the obnoxiously loud living room wall clock and the faint hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. I check on the girls, as I always do. They are back to sleeping in their separate rooms and have stopped complaining of bad dreams. I can almost feel my sister looking over my shoulder as I blow soundless kisses to their sleeping faces.
Jules’s room still hasn’t been touched. Barbara Bianco, who has babysit for the twins since they were babies and was trying to be kind, asked if I would be needing any help going through my sister’s things.
No, I don’t need any help.
I also don’t know what to do about this room. I’m worried it might be unhealthy to leave it as it is forever and yet I can’t stand the thought of packing up Jules’s clothes and sorting through her dresser drawers.
No one needs to remind me that Jules is gone. That doesn’t mean I’m eager to part with pieces of her.
I’m sitting on the edge of her bed and remembering the childish feeling of enthrallment every time I was allowed to set foot in my big sister’s room. Danny’s room, sloppy and smelly, was to be avoided at all costs but Jules’s room was a paradise of pretty colors and soft pillows.
A blue chenille pillow is within my reach and I hug it to my chest before my attention is caught by the columns of envelopes covering the small desk. This is where I’ve been storing the mail that comes addressed to Jules. The bills are promptly opened to be dealt with immediately but everything else has been accumulating in stacks that are becoming a little unmanageable. The responsible thing to do would be to look through it before the collection takes over the room.
The pillow is tossed aside and I reach for the nearest envelope stack. Immediately I see these are statements from First Central New York Bank, which has a branch here in town. This is no surprise. Jules had completed the appropriate forms to allow me to have access to her account if she were ever incapacitated. There’s not a huge amount of money in there, just enough to cover the bills for another few months, reminding me that I need to figure out an employment situation. Trent has offered me a job, which of course I can’t accept. He didn’t argue when I told him that.
I’ve only been keeping track of the account totals, never looking too closely at the details. I open the first statement that covers the month before Jules died and find nothing surprising. Typical bill payments and debit card transactions and biweekly deposits from Jules’s job.
The second statement, however, begins with an inexplicable two thousand dollar wire transfer on the first of the month. Puzzled, I look closely at the line item description but there’s nothing to give away the origin of the deposit.
There are no earlier paper statements here because Jules was alive before that. I’ll need to access the account online if I want to look back further.
My phone is where I left it inside my purse in the living room. A moment later, I’m logged on and downloading the pdf files for older statements. I move backwards through them and find that the same two thousand dollar deposit appears every other month promptly on the first of the month. After going back a year, there has been no deviation from the pattern and I set the phone down, trying to process the meaning.
Those deposits are not from her job at the physical therapy clinic. Her paychecks are all accounted for. She had no other source of income that I was ever aware of.
I don’t know what to make of this at all, but a variety of explanations run through my mind.
All of them leave me feeling uneasy.
11
Trent
“Will this work?” Gretchen asks, checking out the enormous screen I’ve temporarily set up in the living room.